Gait Ataxia, it is not uncommon especially in the aging population and it can come from many sources.We have talked about it several times in the past, thyroid dysfunction can affect the cerebellum."Acquired cerebellar ataxia has been described with hypothyroidism, and is typically reversible by thyroid hormone replacement therapy. The cerebellar dysfunction has been attributed to metabolic and physiological effects of the endocrine disorder. "The cerebellum is one of the main CNS targets of autoimmunity. Immune-mediated cerebellar ataxias include gluten ataxia (search our blog for this one), paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration, GAD antibody associated cerebellar ataxia, and Hashimoto’s encephalopathy.

Progressive non-familial adult onset cerebellar degeneration (PNACD) will have raised antithyroid antibodies (Hashimoto's/autoimmune thyroiditis), and other autoimmune manifestations, in the absence of hypothyroidism and may express cerebellar disorder from the endocrine dysfunction.